Eggrooms

It's a rainy day here in the San Juan Islands... a perfect day for eggrooms.

Whoa - what's that?

Eggrooms is a recipe that I invented nearly 50 years ago for a romantic morning after breakfast. I've never seen it published anywhere... before now.  So the secret is now officially out.

A good blogger would have pictures, both intermediate and finished.  I'm a hungry blogger.

This is way easier (especially for one who fears flipping floppy things with a spatula) than a mushroom omelet.

Ingredients

• Mushrooms, sliced 1/8" thick
• Four eggs
• Butter
• Garlic salt
• Pepper

Start by slicing enough mushrooms 1/8" thick to cover the bottom of your non-stick frying pan.  Try to make the slices uniform in thickness so they all will cook at the same rate.

Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in the pan and saute the the mushrooms over medium heat until they are getting golden brown edges on the bottom side.  Don't try to turn them over - you can't, and even if you could by the time you get the last one done, the first will be over-cooked.  Romove the mushrooms from the pan, retaining as much of the butter in the pan as possible.

Did I mention that I am spatula impaired?  I can only handle two eggs at a time.

Return half of the mushrooms to the pan and arrange them into two circles, more of less, with the centers large enough to contain the egg yolks.  Crack two eggs into the mushroom circles.

Sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper.

We like our eggs over easy - cook as you would normally

Prepare the second two eggs the same way.

You will find eggrooms to be as tasty as a mushroom omelet, but in a different way...

Enjoy!

Eggrooms

What A Simple Answer!

Aroma Diffuser

Why didn't I think of this before?

It lasts nearly forever and works beautifully!  Just be careful not to use a lot of diffuser sticks - a boat is a small place, and too much evaporating surface area will make the fragrence overpowering instead of just barely above the threshold of perception.  If one stick is too much, break it in half - it is the portion sticking out of the bottle that is doing the bulk of the evaporation.

What A Simple Answer!

A Tale of Two Marinas

If you are a liveaboard (or near-liveaboard, as we are now), then your marina is your neighborhood.  When we moved Eolian from Shilshole Bay Marina in Ballard (Seattle) to Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes, we changed neighborhoods.

We love having Eolian at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes!  There are no locked gates at the marina, nor are they needed.  The docks are new, and the space for mooring Eolian is eight feet wider(!) than our space on G-Dock at Shilshole.  There is WiFi in the marina, and it is free.  Just about anything you might want is within easy walking distance of the dock (restaurants, pubs, West Marine, grocery, pharmacy, NAPA, etc, and even driver's license bureau).  And it is a hop skip and jump from the San Juan Islands.

But.

But I miss the community at Shilshole.  At Shilshole, 300 slips are (arbitrarily...) designated by management as liveaboard slips.  Of course, this creates an artificial shortage, with a wait list, additional fees, etc.  But it also means that somewhere between 300-500 people live in the neighborhood, creating an ever-changing community of like-minded souls.  Tho we have made friends at Cap Sante (Hi Ed & Lisa!  Hi Parker & Carol!  Hi Jonathan & Sarah!), the atmosphere is very different.  Instead of liveaboards, many (most?) of the boats on our dock have "boat managers", who make sure that there are fresh flowers on the saloon table when the owners arrive - not at all like the liveaboard/DIY group at Shilshole.

A picture is worth a thousand words...  Here's a comparison of the night views of the two marinas this Christmas season:

Shilshole Bay marina

Cap Sante marina

Now, in fairness, I must note that there is one boat whose lights didn't show up in the Cap Sante picture because they were obscured by another boat.  Here it is:

So why is it that one marina has a vibrant liveaboard community and the other does not?  Part of it is simply numbers - Shilshole is a much larger marina, with approximately 1500 slips, and as I mentioned earlier, 300 liveaboard slips.

Part of it is due to the actions of one very special individual at Shilshole, Angela Brosius, whose dynamic personality has helped to create and foster a community there.

Part of it is location.  Shilshole is located in a very high rent housing area - I am certain that living aboard is an economical alternative to the high rents ashore for some (but by no means all) of Shilshole's residents.

Neither marina encourages liveaboards.  Few marinas do.  I do not know all the reasons for this position, but I suppose one might be that it is very difficult for a marina to encourage responsible liveaboards while discouraging the hoarders with near-derelict boats that barely float.  For more on this subject, I refer you to an article which recently appeared in the Victoria, BC Times Colonist.

Maybe we need an Angela here...

A Tale of Two Marinas

Bittersweet

The great wheel of the seasons has turned.  The Earth is now at the 21:00 position in its orbit (yeah, I know it's arbitrary, but that's how I think of it.  Oh, and that the Earth orbits counterclockwise makes my internal vision even more incorrect.)  Day and nite are equal length; sunset and sunrise occur at 06:00 and 18:00 solar time.  Even at noon, the sun is perceptibly lower in the sky.  All the signs are there:  it is Fall.

And looking realistically at what is on our plate for the remaining few nice days of the year, we won't get Eolian off the dock again in 2016.  So, we have brought the winter fenders to the marina and are doubling up our docklines in preparation for the gales of winter, which are sure to come.  I didn't get to diving on the prop to put on a fresh zinc this last weekend because we had the pleasure of running into Grant and Laurie of s/v Shadowdance, old friends from Shilshole...  and let's be honest here...  I didn't really want to jump in the 51° water either.  So I still have that to do.

It was a great year tho, with week after week living at anchor in the San Juan Islands, some spectacular sails, and 50 crabs in the freezer.

Bittersweet

What Was The Question?

Sixteen or seventeen years ago,when Jane was walking along the boardwalk at Shilshole, something tiny and yellow caught her eye.  She picked it up: a yellow Barbie high-heeled shoe.

When she got back to the boat, she placed that shoe atop our VHF which is mounted on the overhead just as you come down the companionway... 

Yup, it's still there...

The operative question I have is... Why?  What was the question this placement answers?

• Was it to test Eolian's stability?
• Was it to see if the VHF is mounted at the Eolian's center of motion?  (It is, pretty nearly...)
• Was it to test me in some way?  If so, I have missed the cues...
• Was it associated with the rest of her shoe collection in some way?

All I know for sure is that the little yellow shoe is still there.  And that Jane checks periodically to see that it is. 

But she won't tell me why.

And I know better than to disturb it...

What Was The Question?

Living In Two Places - How To Do It

The Green Bag

From 1997 until 2013 we kept Eolian at the Shilshole Bay marina in Seattle.  During this time she served as our Seattle home because I worked in Seattle.  That meant that the majority of our time was spent onboard, with brief weekend sprints to our log cabin on Camano Island.  Now that I am retired, our time is more evenly split between Eolian (now in Anacortes) and Camano Island.

So, for the last 18 years we have been living in two places.  How does that work?  How do we do it?

First, it takes a lot of organization.  Those of you who know me know that organization is not one of my strong suits, but thankfully, it is Jane's raison d'être.  So what follows here is the system that we have developed to make this work.  Tho in our case it applies to a house and a boat, I imagine it would apply equally as well to the case of two houses (for example, a primary home and a vacation home).

The System

The more self-sufficient you can make each location, the less you will have to shlepp back and forth.  There are limits of course.

In no particular order:

• Pay your bills in one place; keep all your records in one place.  If you have things in both places, you'll never be sure whether or not you've paid that credit card bill.
• Have a marshalling location in both places.  That is, a place where things can be collected which need to go to the other location - put things here when you think of them.  This way it is not a giant fire drill when getting ready to leave - things can be accumulated over time.  And then when it is time to pack up, you can be almost certain that nothing has been forgotten.
• Have a solid, sturdy laundry bag.  It will get dragged back and forth full of dirty clothes going one way and clean clothes going the other.
• You will need a set of commonly used tools in both locations.  A boat should be well-equipped with tools in any case, in order to be able to handle breakdowns at sea. For seldom-used specialty tools, see The Green Bag.
• The Green Bag.  The Green Bag always goes with us.  It is a marshalling location for small items.
• By and large, it works best if grocery shopping is done independently at each location.  Keep a separate grocery list for each location.  This will help prevent, for example, having 3 bottles of ground cumin at each end.  Search for a smartphone app called "Our Groceries" - it allows multiple people to manage a shared grocery list (or multiple lists...).
• There will always be some food items that need to be transferred, say a partial gallon of milk or some particularly delectable left-overs.  Bag these together and put them in the marshalling location just prior to departure. 
• You will need a set of commonly used spices in both locations.  For seldom-used specialty spices, see The Green Bag.
• Have no loose items.  Everything should be bagged if possible.  We make extensive use of those reusable grocery bags that are now so in vogue.
• Have a formal shutdown process for each end.  Follow it religiously.  In the beginning, it may be necessary to write it down.  After 18 years, not so much.
• Leave yourself sticky notes to cover unusual circumstances when you think of them - don't try to remember everything at the end when you're packing.  Put them in the marshalling location.
• Make your cell phone your primary telephone number.
• Have a single official location for important items that need to travel, such as a checkbook (in our case, this always lives in my briefcase).  Always, always return the item to its official location after use.  If you violate this rule, you will be certain to find yourself at the boat without your prescription sunglasses, for example.
• Computers are cheap enough now that you can have one at both ends.  But if you are not careful, you computer file systems will be like those two spice drawers...  There will certainly be a collection of directories that you would like to have be in sync on both machines.  Use a cloud service for these, or use a thumb drive to copy these directories back and forth (I use linux - rsync is my friend).
• Reading material - I have only one word for you here: Kindle.
• Cell phone chargers and cables are small and cheap - have an adequate number at both ends.
• Outer gear - keep location specific clothing at each end.  Keep the foulies on the boat and the Carhart chore coat at the house.  If you wear a raincoat to the boat, be sure to put it in the boat marshalling location so that it will go home with you when you leave.
• Hand projects like knitting should be handled as travelling projects - always prepared to go back and forth.  That is, each should have its own bag and live in it.
  

So that's how we do it.  Those of you out there who are doing the same thing  have additional suggestions I'm sure...

Living In Two Places - How To Do It

Two Weeks

Echo Bay sunset

Transitioning to retirement is not an event... it is a process. And at this stage of the process, we have discovered that our previous usage patterns for the boat have changed.

In our old life, we were off the dock for three or four days at a time (towards the end of my career I was working 3 10-hour days/week, a schedule I highly recommend to anyone approaching retirement as a way to 'ease into' it). Except for vacations, when we were off for longer periods. But that meant that normally, provisioning was not a difficult task - not much different from the normal day-to-day provisioning that goes on while living aboard. Pretty much it was "How are we fixed for coffee and beer?" before we left.

But as I mentioned, our patterns have changed. Now we are typically off the dock for two weeks at a time. This means that the old slapdash provisioning has had to be upgraded. And we need to fill the water tanks before we leave. And... well lots of things. Because our trips now are not just a quick jaunt across the Sound to Port Madison or something, but real cruises instead. The kinds of cruises we used to take once or twice a year and that really do need to be planned for.

We have settled (for now, at least) on two weeks because of a couple of things. First, garbage. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I have mentioned before that our limiting capacity on Eolian is not water, fuel, storage, etc... it is garbage. And in two weeks we reach the "full but still manageable" stage. (After a month we are at the "garbage bags on the stern" stage.)

And second, two weeks seems to us like a nice split in life styles... 50% on shore and 50% living aboard.

What we do while off the dock has changed too. Before, we used to zoom from place to place, rarely leaving the anchor down longer than over night. Why? Perhaps because we subconsciously heard the clock ticking in the background and felt the need to get as much in as we could before we had to be back at the dock. This too has changed. Now we spend days at a time anchored in the same place. Today, for example, is our fifth day at anchor here in Echo Bay on Sucia Island... and we expect to be here for several more days.

So, is this better? It certainly is different than our previous life - I think it is more like the life that world cruisers live.

Retirement is good.

Two Weeks

Dawn thoughts

As I look out the window this morning, just before dawn, I am struck by how blessed we are to be able to live this way.  Yes, it is chilly out there, but the colors the early morning light brings to life are absolutely gorgeous.  The water is as smooth as a mirror, showing the sky better than the sky itself.

And I sit here with my latte, almost in disbelief that we get to be here, now.

Dawn thoughts

Conflicted

We're sailors, right?  Wind is our means of movement, our propulsion.  We know how our boats respond to it in all of its vagaries.  We need it; we want it; we crave it.

And yet.

Saturday here in Seattle was wonderfully calm.  And I confess that I felt guilty pleasure in floating around in the marina in the dinghy, unmolested by wind.  Yesterday I joined the ranks of power boaters, for whom smooth water is the ideal, for just while.

I don't think I am alone in this...  We sailors are a difficult to please lot; we want wind when we are off the dock or anchor, but once we tie up or drop the hook, that wind that we so ardently sought is now an uninvited guest, causing the boat to yaw about or squeeze her fenders against the dock.  It's noisy and it disturbs our peace.

We're conflicted people.

Conflicted

Cold weather's a comin'

Here's something that you probably don't think about when you're living ashore...  The weather forecast has some decidedly cold (by Seattle standards, anyway) weather coming next week.  Below freezing.  So cold that water turns into... a solid!

And our water tanks are very low.  Murphy says that we will run out of water aboard when the water hose on the dock is frozen solid.  And when I am taking a shower.  Murphy is such an SOB.

So this afternoor, while it is still warm (54°) outside, I filled our tanks.  We now have 300+ gallons of water aboard, where Murphy can't get at it.

Crap - I can't believe I just said that.  Now our water pump will probably fail.

Cold weather's a comin'

Shhh... Please do disturb

When we are at anchor, a major part of the charm of the experience is the peace that the situation provides.  After the crowded hustle and bustle of being tied to the dock, it is like a breath of cool, refreshing air.  When the anchor goes down and the engine is turned off, I can actually feel the quiet draining the tension out of my shoulders.

I guess we are not very gregarious by nature.  We don't like being in raftups - they are too crowded, too noisy, and require 100% "on" time.  We don't even like being anchored near a raftup because they are typically so noisy (although several recent examples we have encountered have put the lie to that). 

But.

But with all that said, the ability to visit another boat at anchor, or to have someone visit ours is a privilege - something that we geatly look forward to.  We have even been known to row over to someone we have never met and barely know thru the InterTubes and invite them aboard for dinner (Hi Courtney!).   I have written about what a magical, intimate experience it is to visit another boat at anchor, and I can only suppose and hope that it goes the other way too, for people visiting us.

So please, dear readers, should you find yourself anchored in the same bay as Eolian,  do not hesitate to row over and knock on the hull.  Of course you will probably find us dressed in sweats, because that's how we live at anchor, but if you're not embarrassed by that then we certainly won't be.  And we usually have an ample supply of wine or beer to share (and our yardarm is adjustable...).

Everyone at anchor in a harbor has a story to tell...

And we want to hear yours.

Shhh... Please do disturb

Twenty five days

As I type this on Sunday, we are at anchor in Port Blakely, on our 25^th day off the dock so far this year.

That's an amazing statistic.  On most any other year, a review of our log would show a little more than 40 days off the dock for the entire year.  Yet here we are, only 8 days into June, with almost the entire summer and fall ahead of us.

How has this happened?

• Spectacular weather.  Instead of our normal season of Woebegone, we have actually had summer start this year with the beginning of May, instead of July 5^th. 
• My three-day work schedule.  I am, and have been for some time, working 3 ten-hour days (yes, that's a 75% schedule).  This makes for a wonderful 4-day weekend every week - more time for sailing!
• Jane has essentially retired.  This means that she can take care of things at the cabin during the week (laundry, gardening, etc), freeing the weekends for boating.
• A focused determination to use the boat.  This is a big factor.  Without this, we would have taken each rainy forecast as a reason to leave the boat at the dock.  It also means that I have put boating above car maintenance.  At the moment we have but one running vehicle - a situation that, given the nature of our car fleet, is very risky.  

But I said above that we were in Port Blakely.  I checked back thru the log and found that the last time we were here was 5/14/2010, and in years going back before 2010, Blakely Harbor was featured quite frequently.  And as I recall, this harbor was often so crowded that it was not easy to find a spot for the anchor.  Not so this weekend.

I have to wonder.  One thing that has changed between then and now is that Eagle Harbor has cleaned up their moorage field, getting rid of all the permanently moored floating collections of "boats".  This has made Eagle Harbor available as a destination again, perhaps taking some of the load off of Port Blakely, just around the corner.

Not much has changed here in our three-year absence.  The ferry wakes still roll thru here with regularity.  There are no new houses on the shoreline (although the last remaining double-wide on the south shore is now a giant hole in the ground).  The old sawmill log impoundment pond at the very end of the bay is still a park, and the old boiler house is still covered with graffiti.  It is still much quieter here, compared to the hustle and bustle of Eagle Harbor.  And the view of Seattle at nite is still spectacular, undimmed by shoreline lites.

Twenty five days

Cozy

Raining at anchor in Port Madison

When you live aboard, you live aboard in the sunshine, and you live aboard in the rain.  It isn't all sundowners in the cockpit in the cooling evening after a warm day, although it sure has been that way here in Seattle for the last couple of weeks.

Back to normal

Seattle weather has regained its senses.  And all the plants out there, burgeoning away greenly, are thankful.  It's been a long time since they got a drink.

For us, out here at anchor?  It's a time of coziness, corn bread and reading.

And the rain has washed the salt from the windows.

Cozy

Anticipation

Fuel tank repaired?  Check.

Oil changed?  Check.

Battery water topped off?  Check

Anchor windlass tested?  Check.

Engine zincs changed?  Check.

Prop nut zinc changed?  Check.

Batteries reinstalled? Check.

Weather?  Oh my...

82°?  Holy cow!

We are going off the dock for the first time this year on Thursday nite or Friday morning, depending on when provisioning for 4 days or so is complete.  This is when the work pays off...

Oh yeah.

Anticipation

The pain and joy

Mike and Rebecca of Zero to Cruising
(picture swiped from their blog, because it is so perfect)

Living here nearly on the 48th parallel, in January, there is a certain amount of mixed feelings associated with reading about fellow mariners in warm climates. You definitely share in the pleasure of the warm, white sand beaches, with palm trees gently swaying in the trade winds, the waves gently lapping...  ACK!

And here in Seattle right now, our heat pump is not quite adequate to the task of keeping Eolian at 70° inside - a little help from the diesel Dickenson is needed.

Waters so gorgeously blue that they are a cliché, and so clear that you can see your anchor in 30 feet...  as warm as bath water...  ACK!

The water here is 47° - I just went out into the cockpit and checked.  And let cold air into the cabin as a result.  No, you wouldn't want to swim here.  (You wouldn't want to swim here even in the summer - without a wetsuit, that is).  There were snow flurries here this morning.

But you guys - don't stop!  Keep up those postings - you are feeding us the warmth and sunshine that will keep us alive until spring.  We envy you, we rejoice with you, and we don't begrudge you your idyllic surroundings one bit.

 What?  No, no I didn't say anything.

The pain and joy

Bed-making yoga

Sleeping bags for bedding

Last nite, when we got back to Eolian after a long Christmas absence, neither Jane nor I felt up to tackling making the bed (OK, let's be frank - it's my job and I didn't feel up to it).  So my understanding wife and I sacked out in sleeping bags on the bare mattress. 

But there is no avoiding my tasks.  Today I must make the bed.  And because I enjoy it so much I am going to invite you along to help.

Get on those yoga clothes - you're going to need them.

The berth in the master cabin on Eolian accepts queen-sized bedding.  But with a twist.  All normal beds are rectangular, of course.  But not ours.  The bottom corners are chopped off because the hull turns in.  Oh yeah, and the bottom three feet or so are under the ledge formed by the aft deck lazarettes, above.  This last little detail just adds spice to the task, don't you think?  And it is the reason for the yoga togs we're wearing.

Clear the field

The first order of business?  Clear the field.  Get the sleeping bags back into their stuff sacks and stored where they normally go - into the storage compartments under the mattress.

Next on the agenda:  The bottom sheet.  You will note that we will be making the bed... while sitting on the bed!  No walking around the outside, grasshopper.  This just adds to the fun!

Loose

We use fitted sheets on Eolian, but that doesn't take you very far.  First, the mattress is thinner than a "normal" mattress, and then there are those cut-off corners...  How to make the sheet fit tightly (nobody likes loose sheets)?  Here, I've done the first bit of yoga and gotten the sheet into place.  And no, it isn't tight.  At all.  And you might also notice that I am working around the ex-electric blanket.  It is still attached to its umbilical, which runs under the mattress.  So I have to shove it over to one side, arrange the sheet, and then shove it over to the other side and arrange the sheet again.  All for an electric blanket that doesn't work.

Garters - the answer to a man's dream

So how do we make the sheet tight?  When we first moved aboard, Jane was discussing this very problem with a sales clerk at Fred Meyer (Jane is bold that way).  Amazingly, the clerk told Jane that other customers had found these garters to be the very thing to solve the problem.  Isn't it great living in a maritime community?

Streeeeetch

Tight.

What we do is pull up the corners of the mattress, stretch the garters across the corners of the sheet, under the mattress.  Then you just tuck the extra material in under the garter.  I'm sorry that this and the next couple of pictures came out blurry because I rushed the camera.  But I'm not going to take apart the bed to get better ones. 

By doing this, the sheet is so tight that when you let the mattress go back down after applying the last garter, it does so kind of reluctantly.  And the sheet is tight as a drum.  All thanks to a knowledgeable sales clerk in Fred Meyer

OK, take a sip of beer.  You were drinking a beer weren't you?  The hardest part is done.

Now apply the top sheet.  Tuck those bottom corners in all the way - otherwise a covers-stealing spouse might be able to sneak away your sheet.

Repeat with the ex-electric blanket.  I have blamed the inverter for the demise of several electric blankets on Eolian, but really, I think it is the folding and jamming that occurs at those bottom corners that causes them to fail.


And now, finally, the comforter.  (Tuck those corners in!)  Place the pillows carefully, but cheerfully on the bed to give a picture of planned casualness.

And, now you may finish that beer.  Boat yoga and beer are natural partners.

Bed-making yoga

Merry Christmas!

All is well here on Eolian, in this Christmas season, tho there is no snow here at sea level like there was in 2004. A blessing perhaps, but the snow makes everything prettier, the blanket of white reducing everything to the basics.

But really, isn't that a good thing - reduction to the basics? To shed all the chaff of everyday life - all those things that seem so important when we are in the midst of our self-created chaos? And to focus on those things that really matter.

This is relatively easy for liveaboards, since they simply do not have room for all those things - things that eventually own you. Cruisers have an even easier job of it.

And so for this holiday season, it is our wish to you that you can cast off the lines which bind you up and find Peace.

Peace to you, and Peace on Earth.

Merry Christmas!

Bob & Jane
s/v Eolian

Merry Christmas!

Day of the Joker

If you have been reading this blog, you already know that marine heads are different from household toilets in several meaningful ways, even if you live ashore.  If not, know this:  the marine head must pump the bowl contents up with a minimal amount of water, rather than flushing the contents down with prodigious quantities of water.

Because it is a pump, the marine head has moving parts, and more importantly, it has check valves - devices that are supposed to only allow fluid flow in one direction.  The Joker Valve is one such check valve - all the bowl contents must pass thru the joker valve on their way to the holding tank.

Howz'at work, you might ask?  Well, if I squeeze the valve a little, you can see how the lips open - you are looking here at the discharge end of the valve.  Yup, everything that goes in the bowl has to go thru there.

Now, joker valves do not last forever.  To work properly, after the lips have been forced open by passing fluid or solids, they need to spring back closed to prevent backflow.  And over time, the lips lose the ability to do this.  And so the valve must be changed out.  The ones in our heads have been in there for 2 years, and their time is up - after use, the bowls slowly fill up with the stuff that has most recently been pumped out.  Yeah, not pleasant.  Today I will replace them both.

Top to bottom:
Jabsco, Raritan, Groco

But here is where it becomes interesting - Eolian is part of a science project!  Not all joker valves are created equal.  Drew, over at Sail Delmarva, is running a project comparing different joker valve materials, and thanks to Drew, Eolian is participating as a real-world control.

To the left are three different joker valves, showing two different designs and three different materials of construction.  Our heads were made by Jabsco and so we already have a data point for the upper valve - it was what came with the heads, and lasted for about two years.

Today, I installed the Raritan valve in the aft head and the Groco valve in the forward head.  We'll see how they do over the next couple of years or so.

And here's what a joker valve looks like when coming out of service - it's easy to see why this one doesn't work any more...

Day of the Joker

Gotcha.

Today there was a most important convergence: It was not raining, and I was home while it was light. So I took another look at the mast boot.

Having given up on everything else, I cut a new one. Because I had the old one, I didn't have to go thru the patterning exercise - I just traced the old one onto the Naugahyde and cut it out. But first, of course, I had to pull the old one. It was instructive.

Here's the inside of the old one, showing clearly where water had been coming in. (Because of the way I laid it out in the cockpit, that's the bottom of the boot at the top of the picture.)  There are a couple of (dried) streams to the left in the picture, and one gigantic wet stream to the right of center in the picture.  When it was installed, this was at the back, where the sail track is on the mast - a tough place to seal.

The smoking gun

And look what I saw when I turned up the edge and looked closely at the boot where it went over the track.  Yep, the vinyl coating on the fabric had cracked, twice.

Some interesting gel-life growing inside the old boot

---

Update:

Looks like someone is running a hose
on the deck above, doesn't it?

And wouldn't you know?  Mother Nature delivers a test storm not long after I get the new boot installed.  Perfect timing... and it's not just any storm - in fact it is a deluge of Biblical proportions - any minute now I expect to see pairs of animals lining  up out there on the dock.  It's been going on now for 24 hours, and there is no end in sight.

So far?  One drop. 

Yeah.

---

Update #2:

Sunny and dry today (but cold).  This allowed me to inspect the new mast boot more closely than I was able to during and immediately after installation.  What I found was incomplete adhesion of the polysulphide I had used to seal the seam where the ends overlapped on the boot.

Drop explained.

And fixed.  (Replaced the polysulphide with 3M 5200.)

---

Previous post in this series.

Gotcha.

Unmistakable signs

Humans evolved on this planet.

One inevitable consequence of this is a that we each have several internal clocks, timed to the rhythms of the Earth:

• Daily
• Monthly
• Seasonal

Yes, we do have internal clocks that tick over with the seasons.  How else to explain that we inherently know when summer is over.  We think we are superior, above all that, but we are no different than the trees that shed their leaves even before the first frost because, well because it is just time. 

Instead of dropping leaves, people living aboard flag the end of season in different ways:

• Dock lines get doubled up
• Extra fenders get hung
• If the boat has full canvas, the whole enclosure is put up and zipped tight
• Whole-boat canvas covers appear
• Sails may disappear into storage
• Dinghies get picked up and stored out of the water in various ways
• Long neglected, once again, attention returns to deck leaks, and solving them
• We never see our neighbors - there is no one sitting on their bow or stern (perhaps with an adult beverage) to say "Hi" to or to get a quick update on their status - where were they last weekend, where are they going the coming weekend, what projects are they working on.   Instead people walk down the dock, huddled against the rain and cold and and waste no time in getting down below into their own little bubbles of warmth and light.  

And on Eolian, perhaps the last leaf to fall is the disappearance of my ratty $15 commuter bicycle into storage.
 

When it goes, winter is surely close at hand.

It goes this weekend.

Unmistakable signs